


When I grow up

by Runespoor



Category: DCU - Comicverse
Genre: Gen, gen like canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-30
Updated: 2011-12-30
Packaged: 2017-10-28 13:06:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/308169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Runespoor/pseuds/Runespoor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What do you mean you've never gone trick or treating?</p>
            </blockquote>





	When I grow up

**Author's Note:**

> Sweetness that can induce an urge to brush one's teeth. This one is gen like canon, which means I think it subtexts everyone/Dick.

It's easy to recognise when Damian has been patrolling with Steph; he always comes home grumpier.

Tonight, the storm brewing on Damian's brow is especially epic, so there's no doubt in Dick's mind that blond, enthusiastically lively Batgirl must've been shadowed by the tiniest Robin for several hours.

He resists the urge to ask Damian what's wrong. Damian's like a cat; he bristles at anything that he feels endangers his personal dignity and the air of aloofness he clings to. Part of it is because of his family legacy, the role he's taken on, the weight of two dynasties on his ten-year-old shoulders Part of it is that Damian has the socialization level of a far younger very bright, very sheltered only child, and he's as solemn and serious as children that age around grown-ups.

“Report,” Dick orders instead. The best way to get Damian to spit out what's bothering him is to treat it as part of the debriefing.

It takes only a handful of questions for Dick to discover the root of Damian's mood. If only he'd thought of this way to get them to talk about their feelings earlier, maybe Tim's life would've been easier. On the other hand, maybe Dick's fooling himself. Tim was always aware of these things. Perceptive. Tim himself, when Dick stopped and tried to really figure him out,was more of a mystery to Dick than anyone else, including Bruce and Babs; smooth like a glass wall. Self-contained in a way no-one else Dick knows is.

Thankfully, Damian isn't as psychologically-savvy as Tim, and doesn't recognize Dick's benign manipulations for what they are.

“She wouldn't stop chatting about this holiday of yours, and the candy, and the costumes, and the pranks. She said when she was little, she dressed up as _Superman_. For three years in a row,” Damian mutters, resentful like eight-year-old Stephanie betrayed him and the symbol by dressing up as a Metropolis superhuman.

“And she asked who I was planning to dress up as, to which I retorted it would be a tremendous waste of an evening, and she just kept on pushing until she realized that I had never taken part in that tradition,” Damian says.

“She... expressed disbelief when I told her I had never gone trick-or-treating,” he says.

“It's silly and childish,” he affirms.

“I told her I wasn't raised in America, we didn't celebrate Halloween. I realize I haven't had the childhood of a typical American child such as her. Or, or the rest of you. We—I--we did things differently,” he goes on.

“ _Batman_ doesn't go trick-or-treating,” he points out.

“Does he?” he asks.

“It would be a waste of an evening,” Damian concludes.

Damian's brow is furrowed enough that his eyes are buried in shadow. He's tense and uncomfortable and as unhappy and unsure as the heart of a ten-year-old can go when he wants someone, anyone but most specifically the person he looks up to, to answer his question, quiet his unrest and make things all right.

If he was shuffling and darting into cartwheels instead of clenching his fists and his jaw, Dick would think he was facing himself, when Bruce first took him in.

Answering is easy. He's been where Damian is; that place is graved in his heart, the centre of the spiral that leads to him here today, answering the questions of Bruce's son.

Still, he chooses his words with care: Damian's not him. Some of the things Dick wants to tell him, right now and every day, he would react badly to. They would bewilder and anger him, and do more damage to their rapport than Dick is comfortable with inflicting on the one relationship Damian calls friendship.

“When I was with the circus, I never went trick-or-treating,” he tells Damian, soft, with a hand on his shoulder. “Holidays nights always bring in lots of business, so we were kept busy.”

It's the truth, if an edited version; after the show was over, the circus kids would scamper around, playing their own tricks. Dick's early Halloweens featured a lot of TP'ing.

Damian doesn't look up, his shoulder stony under Dick's hand. “What did my father say,” he says, very low.

Bruce hadn't said anything on the subject, really; and Dick wasn't yet comfortable enough to bring it up again. He didn't want to rub his parents in Bruce's face, like he was comparing between life at Haly's and life with Bruce and found Bruce lacking; would have gladly swallowed a hot brand rather than let Bruce think that, even then.

He didn't want to bring back memories of Bruce's parents, either. You had to tread carefully about Bruce's parents. Not because Bruce would get angry at him, but because he'd sink into that quiet, muted pain that Dick knew to be sadness.

It was Alfred who'd said the right things, and asked the right questions.

“There was a gang, we suspected they'd try to move drugs around with the sweets, so I dressed up and infiltrated the kids. I spent the evening trick-or-treating, on the look-out for anything weird.”

“Then it was the Mission,” Damian says slowly.

Dick shakes his head, smiling. The movement catches Damian's attention, at least, and he looks up. “I didn't find out anything. We figured out later that they were using bakeries as their sales point. And I went trick-or-treating for years after that.”

Damian mulls it over.

“What were you costumed as?” he asks at last, like this will be the basis on which he will judge the entire worth of Dick's advice. Better not to think how badly Dick will fail in his eyes if he answered like Steph did.

“Musketeer,” Dick grins. “But you know what? After the first couple of years, there were a few kids dressed as Robin. So I'd just pop at some door, get some candy, and pop back into patrol.”

A lot of the sweets he'd shared with Batgirl, sticking chocolate and sugary colors into their mouths after they'd kicked some punks' asses, or on a rooftop after a laugh. She'd gobble them as avidly as he did, and send him back down for more. He used to wonder how it'd feel to kiss her then, how she'd taste, and he didn't know if the sheen of her lips was sticky sweetness or lipstick. Halloween nights did a lot for his fantasy life.

To this day the crinkle of a condom wrap torn open puts him in mind of Barbara's candy-pink lips smacking together, after she crinkled the packet of the candy open and swallowed the candy down.

Damian seems to consider, the exact same frown painted on his brow as Bruce considering Green Arrow's latest shenanigans: strategical and somewhat haughty. “Musketeers are acceptable,” he finally deems, “but I think I would like Zorro better. Or a Jedi.”

There's a question there, in Damian's raised eyebrow and the openness of his eyes. It's all Dick can do to force his hands on the chair's arms, to keep himself from reaching and ruffling Damian's hair, or pulling him into a hug.

“They're both great, little D,” Dick assures.


End file.
